


The Horrible Truth

by Briltop



Category: HoloEN, Hololive, Virtual Streamer Animated Characters, holoMyth
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Confrontations, Dark, F/F, Iname, Sad and Happy, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 07:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30136020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Briltop/pseuds/Briltop
Summary: In an attempt to time travel Amelia ends up in a place she hasn't been for years with someone familiar yet estranged and is invited to learn about the true workings of her pocket watch.
Relationships: Ninomae Ina'nis/Watson Amelia (hololive)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	The Horrible Truth

The hands of the watch swiftly turned as Amelia confidently twisted the dial at the top, spinning forwards… further forwards… and then back a little bit, stopping at the exact moment she was planning to return, just in time for her to prepare a dinner for two. She had chosen a quiet place, an alleyway located only a few streets down from her apartment, or rather, where it would be built in a few years, away from nosy eyes and ears. 

A stray cat, clearly annoyed at her presence as it had been in the middle of cleaning itself before she arrived, would be the only witness of her journey home.

_ ‘You won’t tell anyone, right?’’  _

The detective winked at the feline as her thumb pushed the watch’s crown forwards with an audible click. The ensuing bright flash and gust of wind startled the animal, evident by it’s swift departure from it’s chosen spot on a trashcan in search for a different place to finish washing up.

* * *

Something had clearly gone very wrong.

She found herself standing alone in the middle of a large aquarium tunnel, an assortment of aquatic life swimming around on the other side of the glass while the light shining down from above the surface of the water reflected in beautiful patterns on the smooth floor around her. It was only when the sound of her first step echoed through the hall that she noticed just how quiet the place was. There was no music or informational recordings playing through the speakers, no chitter chatter of parents pointing out different types of fish to children gasping in amazement, and no other footsteps to join those of her own. Amelia brushed her hand over an informational plaque describing the physiology and behavior of a tiger shark, eyes wandering across the words and photos without really processing any of it, her mind occupied with thoughts on how she had ended up here.

A reflection in the glass caught her attention, turning around to see that she wasn’t alone in the tunnel after all. Just a bit ahead, seated on a sturdy and rather uncomfortable looking bench was an old woman, staring directly at her with tired but comforting deep blue eyes. Her long dark hair was twisted into a single braid and showed signs of greying at the roots, frail hands were folded over each other on her lap, slightly wrinkling the simple but stylish dress that accentuated the woman’s slender frame. Just below her right eye, threatening to be swallowed up by a set of deep crow’s feet, sat a single small beauty mark.

_ ‘Ina?’ _

_ ‘Hello, Amelia.’  _ The woman smiled, any sign of fatigue that had been present in her eyes seemed to fade away, as if being recognized had been revitalizing, invitingly patting on the empty spot on the bench next to her.  _ ‘Come. Sit with me.’ _

_ ‘I don’t think I’m supposed to... be here.’  _ Amelia’s hesitant response exposed more of the nervousness she was feeling than she intended. ‘ _ I should go.’ _ She reached out to the pocket watch dangling from the chain on her skirt.

_ ‘Please.’ _

Something in her voice stopped Ame from activating the golden device. An unspoken desperation, not begging but pleading her to reconsider. Though she knew Ina wouldn’t try to stop her, deep down she felt that stepping away from this encounter would be a huge mistake, even as her mind practically screamed at her to leave.

Slowly, anxiously, she stepped forwards and sat down on the bench, her body tense like a wound up spring. Ame took her time carefully examining the older woman, her curiosity stronger than her sense of manners, an act which her subject of observation seemed to find no issue or insult with. There was no doubt in her mind that the person sitting next to her was the same Ina’nis she had come to so intimately know, but far older. Wrinkles covered almost every part of her face in some form or another, her eyes had sunken deeper in their sockets and while her lips had never been the fullest they had thinned out even further, placing her somewhere in her late sixties to early seventies by Amelia’s rough estimation. Much like the rest of her body Ina’s hands seemed to have gotten even more wiry with age, but callouses on her fingertips and the folds of her nails being darkened with dried up ink revealed that a desire for artistic expression had been a part of her entire life. Yet the most profound difference by far had nothing to do with the woman’s maturity, but rather the lack of any sign of the influence the Ancient Ones had caused on her features. The top of her head contained no flaps, her bangs were just that, and where the tips of her ears had sharpened these looked smooth and round. Amelia felt a strong urge to touch her face, raising a hand before thinking better of it and lowering it down again. Her vision breaking away from Ina’nis and wandering over to the stingray that was slowly passing over their heads.

Minutes seemed to pass without a word being spoken, the two women, young and old, getting lost in the sights of everything the aquarium had to offer. It was Ina who broke the silence as she leaned in a little and spoke up.

_ ‘Do you remember this place?’ _

Amelia nodded. Despite the peculiar situation she found herself in she couldn’t help but smile.  _ ‘The Tunnel of Water Wonders in the Sea Sanctuary Aquarium. We went here for a school trip in the early 2000’s. I was so scared of the sharks that you practically had to drag me in here… and then I almost pissed myself laughing because you wouldn’t stop making really dumb fish jokes.’ _

_ ‘Gill-ty as charged… they were really a-trout-cious weren’t they?’ _ Ina chuckled.

_ ‘Yeah they were. You didn’t miss a single oppor-tuna-ty for a pun.’  _ The blonde’s smile faded slightly, resting her head against the thick glass, poking at a fish who had swum closer and was fruitlessly trying to nibble at them.  _ ‘They closed this place down in 2011. You begged me to go with you one last time… and we did. Half of the animals had already been moved out, but you still sat there for hours sketching and talking with me. You looked really happy.’ _

A contemplative quietness once again returned to the place. Hidden away between some rocks was an octopus swatting at a school of fish passing by a little too close for comfort, pairs seahorses danced around between the colorful coral and every bite-sized creature quickly made way for a shark lazily swimming past, unwilling to take the risk on whether it was hungry or not. Amelia felt herself relaxing, reminiscing about the time they had spent together here sharing weird and gross facts about oceanic life and getting horribly lost in detailed conversations about which one of them would taste the best. 

She barely even flinched when Ina’nis turned towards her and laid one of her hands on Amelia’s. Her digits felt so brittle and cold that the young woman was afraid that pulling away would cause her to break something.

_ ‘Amelia, please come home.’  _ Ina urged her, her thin lips curled up but her eyes were filled with a deeply rooted expression of sorrow.

_ ‘I’m sorry. I don’t… I don’t understand.’ _

The old woman slowly slipped her hand away and placed it back on her lap, eyes travelling from Amelia’s face downwards, settling on the watch which had been ticking away, it’s hands shifting slightly without ever moving from their place.  _ ‘Your mind is not going to want to believe what I’m about to tell you. You’re going to want to fight it, run away from it or simply wish to forget. You might even hate me for it. But before that I need you to listen to what I have to say, every last word of it, without interruptions.’  _ Ina looked up into Amelia's eyes again, every muscle in her face underlining the seriousness of her request.  _ ‘Can you promise me that?’ _

There was a sense of certainty in her voice that frightened Amelia to the core. The yelling in the back of her mind returned, begging her to leave and get away as far as she could, to use her watch and go back to her apartment and forget everything she saw here. 

But she couldn’t. 

Not without knowing.

_ ‘I promise.’  _

She cursed her own curiosity. 

An expression of relief washed over Ina’nis’s face, her tensed up shoulders relaxing slightly as her eyes wandered around the room and her lips parted slightly, as if looking for the right words to begin. Then she spoke. 

_ ‘The watch you’re carrying is the result of decades of work your ancestors spent researching an obsession which has had its grip on humanity ever since the first of man contemplated on what they would do differently should they be given the chance. They wanted to give purpose to hindsight and find a means to discover the truth behind historical mysteries which even modern science seemed unable to answer. In other words, they were exploring the possibility of travelling through time. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that these men and women were some of the most brilliant intellectuals ever to have existed in the course of human history. Together they theorized about formulas and concepts that were many years ahead of their time, some of which they patented and sold to fund their investigations, others they deemed too fundamentally important, and dangerous, to get in the hands and minds of anyone but themselves.’ _ Ina’s hand raised up to cover her mouth for a moment as she audibly swallowed to soothe her throat, clearly not used to talking so much in one go, as was evident by her voice turning hoarse, before continuing.  _ ‘They approached the subject in every way imaginable, limited by the technology of their time but refusing to let that hold them back as they spent weeks… months… years… in search for the right answers. They passed what they discovered on towards their next of kin, in the hopes that their children could unveil something they had been blind to. In the end each and every one of them hit the same snag, forced to face two seemingly unbendable truths of the universe. One can’t change that which has already happened, and one can’t visit a point in time that has not yet occurred.’ _

Amelia’s mouth opened as she wanted to speak up and interrupt the old woman despite her promise, an action that was swiftly noticed and halted by Ina’nis, who laid a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed.  _ ‘Let me finish. Please.’ _ And she did, pushing down the questions that had almost made their way past her lips, clenching her fists so hard her knuckles turned white.

_ ‘Now, your forefathers were a stubborn lot, refusing to let years of work go to waste simply because they had reached such an unsatisfying conclusion. And so they used their calculations and theories as the foundation for the next best thing they could think of, laying the groundwork for what would one day become the very watch that is now in your possession. The device they ended up constructing allowed them to live out their desires to travel through time… in a sense. You see, instead of bending the rules of reality they instead opted to create new ones. Pocket realities, indistinguishable from the real thing which they named Prospects. These Prospects would allow them to experience the most mathematically likely outcome of the choices they made while they were inside them. But to provide the most accurate results these new realities too had to follow the same unbendable rules of their own as closely as possible, meaning they had to create new Prospects each time they traveled... and leave the ones they influenced by their presence and actions behind.’ _

It was at this point that Amelia could feel her heart throbbing in her ears, faster and faster, barraging her head like a jackhammer. While her fingers were wrapped around the watch, just a single flick away from no longer having to listen to any of it, a paralyzing fear had taken over, freezing every part of her body. She wanted to shout, to scream, to cry. Yet something in the old woman’s voice wouldn’t let her, not until she was done. Amelia didn’t want to hear it, but she knew she had to.

_ ‘In time, as technology advanced, the device was adjusted. The first prototypes were so immense that they required a dedicated room to be stored in, but as it neared its final form it was made to fit in the palm of one’s hand. Formulas were perfected. Experiments were completed. But there was one last part of the equation which baffled its creators. The generation of Prospects required a massive amount of power. No source of energy they got their hands on had enough capacity to create more than a handful of Prospects before the device would shut down and forcefully return the user back to reality. It wasn’t until desperation hit that they even dared to consider an option which had been in front of them since they had started the project so many years before. A vote was cast. The result was unanimous. They would use the one source that would be infinite. Time.’ _

_ ‘S-stop…’  _ Ame’s voice was barely more than a gasp.

_ ‘They engineered a way for the user of the watch to be held in stasis. To be… preserved. Kept safe from outside influences. Their body and mind simply waiting until their destination, their Prospect, was ready for them to step into.’ _

_ ‘Stop...’  _

_ ‘What would only be the blink of an eye for the user in reality took vast amounts of time. Months would pass. Sometimes years. It was the only way to create as many Prospects in a sequence to satiate their deep, endless curiosity. Even if that meant that only the watch’s user would be left to discover the answers they were looking for.’ _

_ ‘You’re lying!’ _ Amelia stood up from the bench in anger, in fear. Her lip was trembling, her heart was racing.

Ina’nis did not answer. She didn’t have to. The horrible truth was visible through the pity in her eyes, staring right at Amelia relentlessly. Every word she had said had been nothing but the truth. 

_ ‘You’re lying…’  _ Tears started flowing down the blonde’s cheeks, a gate unlocking in her memory, flooding her with everything she had done, everything she had left behind since the moment that she started using the watch.

_ ‘Amelia… you have to come home before you no longer recognize anything you once knew and have left behind. Before you get too deeply lost in the beautiful fiction of these fake realities. Please. Just come home.’ _

The blonde clenched her teeth, a hungering determination to hold on to her own reality shining through despite her tears.  _ ‘Bullshit! All these years I have fixed so many things. I saved lives and prevented so many disasters from even happening in the first place. I risked myself for you so many times I lost count… you never had to suffer because I suffered in your stead! That can’t all have been fiction... it just can’t. I don’t know who you are or what you want, but I won’t let your lies stop me from doing… from doing good... I can’t… I won’t… just… stop… please, stop…’  _ Amelia stumbled through her words. They hurt as she forced them up through her throat. They hurt because she knew they wouldn’t change the truth. 

_ ‘That kind of speculation will ravage your mind. Your reaction is exactly why no one should travel as much as you have. When your aunt left you the watch she never intended for you to use it… but to keep it safely hidden away until it was your turn to pass it onwards. Don’t let the result of your ancestor’s obsessions ruin you, Amelia. Don’t let their dream become your nightmare.’ _

Amelia stumbled down onto the floor, pressing back against the glass of the tunnel and her knees up to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs as if to desperately hold herself together. She cried. Minutes passed without a word being spoken. The echoes of her sobs slowly dying out until there was nothing but a painful silence left to fill the emptiness around them.

_ ‘You’re not really her. Are you?’ _ Her voice cracked, broken like her mind.

_ ‘I’m as real as all the other ones you’ve met as you traveled. But unlike them, I… and this space around us… are not bound by the same rules as Prospects. We are here as a reminder, a way to help those lost find their way back. We are the anchor to reality and a reflection of it. Of the things that once were, and the things that now are.’ _

A horrible truth dawned on the detective. Her face turned pale, her pupils dilated, her nails digging deep into the flesh of her palms. She once again cursed her curiosity as she looked up to Ina and realized that she had to know.  _ ‘How many times have I been here?’ _

_ ‘Ame, you don’t w-’ _

_ ‘Just answer the question!’ _

Ina’nis eyes drifted away. She looked old. She looked tired. 

Amelia’s fist smashed into the glass behind her.  _ ‘How many times?!’  _

_ ‘Seven… we’ve spoken seven times in the past. And every time you chose to forget.’ _

_ Seven…’  _ Amelia’s body slumped. She wanted so desperately to go home, to go back to the Ina’nis she thought she knew, but a spark of desperation ignited a flame in her head. A final attempt to refute everything she had been told. To prove that whatever this place was and whatever this woman wanted from her was nothing but lies.  _ ‘How can this version of you be real if I tried everything… everything… to save her! To stop the Ancient Ones from claiming her! From whispering their filthy fucking lies! Changing her! Hurting her! Hurting me! But nothing worked! They always found a way! I tried everything and it was never enough!’ _

_ ‘Not everything.’  _ Ina whispered, her fingers tightly clenched into the fabric of her dress, her voice dripping with pain. _ ‘There is one difference between those you tried to save... and the one you left behind.’  _

Amelia knew. She knew as the flame in her head sputtered out. She knew but did not want to hear it.  _ ‘No... please...’ _

_ ‘It’s you, Amelia.’ _

There was a flash of blinding white light and a gust of wind. Ina’nis once again found herself alone in the tunnel. She prayed that she would stop existing. That this place would stop existing. That the pain in her heart would vanish and that Amelia would finally go home. 

The old woman prayed she never had to see Amelia again.

* * *

Amelia groaned softly as she finally managed to open her eyes. The familiar and comforting feeling of her warm bed was swiftly replaced with the pain of aching muscles as she pushed herself up with her elbows to sit upright. A sense of relief washed over her as she found Ina was vast asleep next to her, knelt on the ground with her upper body resting on the bed, a novel still opened and clutched in her hand. From a corner of the apartment Ame’s favorite album was playing on a set of speakers, the lingering smell of freshly brewed coffee tickled her nose and bright sunlight was shining in through the windows looking out over the city. She was finally home again. 

_ ‘Ame?’ _

The blonde watched as Ina slowly woke from her slumber, rubbing her eyes and smiling with such relief that it hurt. For just a moment Amelia could see all the ones she had abandoned standing in the room behind her. All the ones who were suddenly left without her. All the ones who had gotten hurt. All the ones who died. It was almost too much to bear.

_ ‘I’m so relieved you finally woke up. How are you feeling?’ _

_ ‘I… I don’t remember how I got here.’  _

Ina’nis put the book down on the floor and reached out to grab Amelia’s hand, gently squeezing it for comfort.  _ ‘Some people found you a few streets down from the apartment... you somehow ended up in an alleyway so it took a while for anyone to notice in the first place. It was very hot that day and they said you looked dehydrated, so the police think you collapsed before you got home. You stayed in the hospital for a day but they said it was okay to take you back home and let you rest here.’ _

Ame couldn’t hold herself back any longer, swiftly leaning in towards Ina despite her aching muscles yelling at her, desperately holding onto her lover as if she never wanted to let her go ever again.  _ ‘You’re… real… you’re my Ina, right? _

_ ‘Ame, what’s going on?’ _ Her partner’s arms were loosely dangling next to her, clearly startled and confused by the sudden question. _ ‘You’re scaring me.’ _

_ ‘Just tell me you’re mine… please...’ _

_ ‘Of course I am.’  _ Ina’s arms wrapped around Amelia, gently holding her, as if she was afraid she would break.  _ ‘Of course I am…’ _

Amelia had chosen.

* * *

A few days passed.

The syringe’s needle was sunk deep into her own neck as Amelia pushed the plunger down, forcing the blue liquid it carried deep into the veins. 

She chose to forget.

**Author's Note:**

> This one was quite a struggle to write due to it being such a lore dump... but I hope I succeeded in making something that's understandable!
> 
> Once again not quite happy with the ending, especially Ina's spoken lines, which I edited slightly compared to the version I posted on Twitter.


End file.
